Abstract

Granular boom sprayer has been used by large scaled farmers for centuries. This machine is used to repel or fertilize their crops. In MARDI, they used 3 types of fertilizer that is Nitrogen, N, Phosphorus, P and Potassium, K. Those 3 types of particles have been simulated by using Ansys software and the results show that potassium, K fertilizer not scattered to the ground and the others 2 fertilizers are conversely. The uniformity of the distribution of granular fertilizer was carried out with a reasonable range of variables. Various methods have been used to study the efficiency of the spray boom design on through simulation software and lab approach. In this work, the simulation of the particles in the boom sprayer is performed from the boom sprayer entering until the exit and distributed to the ground. The simulation is performed by using ANSYS CFX based on the Taguchi method. Taguchi method have been used in this study. For the orthogonal array, since this case study consists of 4 level and 5 factor, L‟16 was used for the simulation process. This simulation utilize only one fertilizer that contained all types of the basic NPK fertilizer. The parameters are involved the granular diameter size, air velocity at the inlet, blow head distance, height of collecting plate and width of collecting plate. Results shows that the air velocity must be kept higher when the diameter of particle increases. Collecting plates with excessive height and width can cause the velocity fertilizer to drop and the particles fail to distribute well. Furthermore, furthers distance between the boom section can also cause the particles to scattered unevenly onto the ground. The most desired simulation result was achieved with 1.5 mm diameter particles, air velocity 8 m/s, distance between boom section is 200 mm and height and width of collecting plate is 14 mm and 10 mm. Particle scattered well and the average of the particle at the first exit until last exit of boom section were observed to be evenly distributed.